Testimony to begin in trial of Mexican national charged in stepdaughter’s death in Waco

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - Testimony is set to begin Tuesday in the murder trial of a Waco man charged with biting his stepdaughter multiple times, including her neck, before she died of strangulation five years ago.

Francisco Javier Sanchez, 63, a Mexican citizen who also remains jailed under an immigration detainer, is on trial in Waco’s 54^th State District Court in the May 15, 2021, strangulation death of 41-year-old Josie Lucio Hernandez at a home in the 900 block of Brown Avenue.

Prosecutors Luke McCowan and Duncan Widmann and defense attorney Bryan Cantell spent most of Monday selecting a jury.

According to arrest records filed in the case, Hernandez’s body was unclothed and lying on the living room floor covered with a blanket when police arrived at the scene.

Sanchez, who identified himself as her stepfather, said she had returned from drug rehabilitation a few days before and told officers “she had been acting crazy the evening before,” according to an arrest affidavit.

Sanchez said he last saw her alive about midnight and she was sitting on the couch. He said they were the only two in the house.

EN ESPAÑOL: Comenzarán las declaraciones en el juicio de un cuidadano mexicano acusado de la muerte de su hijastra en Waco

Officers examining her body noted “suspicious marks all over her body,” the affidavit alleges. Those included bruising on her neck, both breasts, both wrists, “swollen external genitalia” and suspected bite marks on her neck, both thighs and other locations.

Sanchez told officers that Hernandez “had forced herself on him” about 10 p.m.

“During the sexual intercourse, he claimed that Josie was telling him to bite her all over her body,” the affidavit alleges. “He said they had sex on the couch and the floor until” about 11 p.m.

A medical examiner ruled the cause of death as strangulation, the affidavit states, and DNA tests on a possible bite mark on her left thigh showed Sanchez as a potential DNA contributor.

Police investigators listened to jail calls between Hernandez and her brother in late 2020 and early 2021 in which “Josie mentioned over and over how much she could not stand Francisco and that he was infatuated/in love with her,” according to arrest records. “She told Joe (her brother) that Francisco would say inappropriate things to her and take advantage of her addiction.”

Detectives spoke to other family members and friends of the victim. Hernandez’s best friend said she would never voluntarily have sex with Sanchez.

Phone records showed Hernandez messaged Sanchez on Feb. 15, 2021, giving him 30 days to move out of the house.